NSERC Industrial Chairs

NSERC/Medtronic Industrial Research Chair in Spine Biomechanics

Chairholder

Carl-Éric Aubin is a full professor at the École Polytechnique de Montréal’s Department of Mechanical Engineering as well as a researcher and the Head of the Musculoskeletal Diseases and Rehabilitation research axis at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center.

Objectives

Improve biomedical technologies with regard to the diagnosis and treatment of spinal deformities

Achievements (2007-2012)

Spinal surgery simulator

Microimplant that controls spinal growth

Multifunctional operation tables

Projects (2012-2017)

The Chair seeks to develop applications that will improve the treatment of children and adults with spinal deformities. These efforts aim to:

develop simulation tools aimed at a better understanding of the principles that underlie treatments, ranging from 3D spinal geometry and preserving balance to surgical instrumentation technologies;

develop and validate innovative devices that make it possible to maintain spinal mobility and flexibility without using osteosynthesis and are as noninvasive as possible;

develop a navigation-simulation system similar to a GPS system that will assist and optimize surgeries, opening the way to what will become the OR of the future.

Quick Facts and Numbers - Scoliosis and Research

3%-4% of the population is affected by scoliosis

10% of people with scoliosis must wear a brace 23 hours a day

10% of the people who require a brace will undergo surgery

80 patients per week are seen at the Clinical Research Unit in Orthopedics (URCO)

Almost all the patients participate in research protocols

50% reduction in the weight of the brace, 30% reduction in the surface area of the brace that comes into contact with the body and an even more effective correction thanks to a new generation of braces based on the work done by Carl-Éric Aubin and his colleagues at the Sainte-Justine UHC.